TM Studios Song Search
Printed From: Top 40 Music on CD
Category: Top 40 Music On Compact Disc
Forum Name: Chat Board
Forum Description: Chat away but please observe the chat board rules
URL: https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9192
Printed Date: 11 May 2025 at 4:26pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.07 - https://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: TM Studios Song Search
Posted By: Gary
Subject: TM Studios Song Search
Date Posted: 17 November 2019 at 5:25pm
| I noticed TM Studios has shut off their online song search for members after discontinuing the HitDiscs last December. I did a download of all their Hitdisc releases by song in a type of Spreadsheet this past January. I'm glad I did that as well as recorded by hand in one of my old Top 40 Music On Compact Disc the Golddisc numbers I could find each of the songs on. Another end of an era in the music industry. On another note, I switched over to Promo Only and have been greatly satisfied in finding the hits for my radio stations that play currents in our cluster. |
Replies:
Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 18 November 2019 at 5:22am
|
I haven't been on the programming side of things for almost
20 years, but is Promo Only still a monthly service or have their releases become more frequent? Other than New Music Server, what other services are there for radio these days? Do the labels still issue promo CDs (or have d/l sites)? |
Posted By: eriejwg
Date Posted: 18 November 2019 at 9:19am
|
I subscribed to PrimeCuts from TM from 2005 until 2018
when I switched to Promo Only last December. I had subscribed to Top Hits U.S.A. from 1994 to 2005. I often use(d) the TM search to locate a song on one of my PrimeCuts CD's as many of my clients tend to go below the Top 40 for their song choices nowadays. Gary, would you mind sharing your spreadsheet? Does it also into the PrimeCuts discs? I didn't have access to the HitDiscs until the beginning of 2016. ------------- John Gallagher Erie, PA https://www.johngallagher.com" rel="nofollow - John Gallagher Wedding & Special Event Entertainment / Snapblast Photo Booth |
Posted By: eriejwg
Date Posted: 18 November 2019 at 9:21am
|
Steve, see above. I switched from PrimeCuts to Promo Only
POOL server last December. Promo Only had hired Jim Weisz from TM to recruit PrimeCuts subscribers to join Promo Only. I don't know if Jim is still with them or not. ------------- John Gallagher Erie, PA https://www.johngallagher.com" rel="nofollow - John Gallagher Wedding & Special Event Entertainment / Snapblast Photo Booth |
Posted By: Gary
Date Posted: 18 November 2019 at 3:27pm
Promo Only still releases discs(I believe) once a month - but there is POOL from Promo Only which adds new music daily and with many different versions/Intro Edits which I have an app for on my desktop computer which I can download songs from. I chose POOL Audio Silver which covers most of the formats that TM Studios had plus more. We also have New Music Server and All access for music downloads as well. All Access helps us with our Active Rock station as POOL does not have that format. |
Hykker wrote:Posted By: Gary
Date Posted: 18 November 2019 at 3:28pm
Yes Jim is still with Promo Only - I just renewed for another year a week ago! |
Posted By: eriejwg
Date Posted: 18 November 2019 at 4:42pm
|
Thanks Gary! You're a lifesaver! ------------- John Gallagher Erie, PA https://www.johngallagher.com" rel="nofollow - John Gallagher Wedding & Special Event Entertainment / Snapblast Photo Booth |
Posted By: eriejwg
Date Posted: 20 November 2019 at 9:22am
|
I received a reply from Lakeisha at TM Studios asking for
a link to download all of their database files. Here is a direct link to download the zip files. https://members.tmstudios.com/securedownload/dl.aspx? fid=SongData ------------- John Gallagher Erie, PA https://www.johngallagher.com" rel="nofollow - John Gallagher Wedding & Special Event Entertainment / Snapblast Photo Booth |
Posted By: Gary
Date Posted: 22 November 2019 at 6:53pm
Thanks a bunch for doing this - I had the Hitdiscs but not the Golddiscs. Much appreciated! |
Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 23 November 2019 at 6:21am
|
Apparently you need to have an account/be logged in to
access those files. Curiously, does something similar exist for the BPI/Jones equivalents of Hit/Gold discs? A Google search turned up nothing useful. |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 23 November 2019 at 8:14am
|
Great resource, John! ------------- Aaron Kannowski http://www.uptownsound.com" rel="nofollow - Uptown Sound http://www.919thepeak.com" rel="nofollow - 91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop |
Posted By: eriejwg
Date Posted: 23 November 2019 at 12:45pm
|
My pleasure. While it completely lacks the convenience of
online searching, I uploaded the Excel files to my OneDrive so I can access them on my phone. ------------- John Gallagher Erie, PA https://www.johngallagher.com" rel="nofollow - John Gallagher Wedding & Special Event Entertainment / Snapblast Photo Booth |
Posted By: RichM921
Date Posted: 28 November 2019 at 6:41am
|
Thanks for that link John. I also used the GoldDisc search for various
reasons when it was active. The spreadsheets are a good replacement. |
Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 28 November 2019 at 7:08am
|
Don't know what I did differently, but it worked when I
tried it today. Thanks for the link John! Is it safe to assume that BPI/Jones discs don't have a master list anywhere? |
Posted By: eriejwg
Date Posted: 28 November 2019 at 11:43am
|
Steve, I'm not sure when these databases were originally
created or if the Jones discs are simply renamed or were absorbed into one database. There was a time during my subscription from 2005-2018 that the company was called Jones/TM so maybe that's when databases were recreated. I honestly don't know. Have you checked out the all discs spreadsheet? Maybe that has Jones titles listed. I've heard mention online of Dave Scott of uncompressedmusic.com who once was CEO of TM Century. I think the new station in Tuscon programmed by Bobby Rich, "The Drive", uses Dave Scott's library. Dave may have access to the original Jones databases. ------------- John Gallagher Erie, PA https://www.johngallagher.com" rel="nofollow - John Gallagher Wedding & Special Event Entertainment / Snapblast Photo Booth |
Posted By: Gary
Date Posted: 30 November 2019 at 6:28pm
These were called Chartbreakers. We got them at our station on Barter from 2000 until the stop producing them at the end of 2006. We got the CHW discs and the CRW Discs. After Jones bought out TM they formed Jones TM and they discontinued Chartbreakers and issued us Hitdiscs instead - which we were already subscribing for the A discs so we ended up with 2 copies a week! I do have one Word file that I put together as a directory from CHW-0313 until the last one produced - CHW-0651. This does not list the country cuts as we were using CDX for our country station. I have a couple notebooks of the CHW directory I created from 0001 until 0313. I also have directory for the CRW-8001 until 8651 in that notebook separately. I cannot find the original files I made of these. We were using these discs for our Modern Rock/Active Rock station. |
Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 02 December 2019 at 8:23am
That's probably the route I'll go with the JRN classic/active rock gold library I have, probably as an Excel file so it's sortable. Not really worth the bother for me on the weekly discs since so many of the songs on them are either not hits or not of interest to me (such as the urban or rock currents). |
Posted By: music4life75
Date Posted: 23 November 2020 at 12:37pm
| The link didn't work for me. Apparently, I missed out. :( |
Posted By: RichM921
Date Posted: 23 November 2020 at 12:45pm
| If you want to message me, I can send you the Excel files. |
Posted By: VWestlife
Date Posted: 24 November 2020 at 9:54am
|
Here is the TM Studios GoldDisc / HitDisc database:
https://tinyurl.com/tmcentury - https://tinyurl.com/tmcentury Edit: Fixed link. |
Posted By: AdvprosD
Date Posted: 05 December 2020 at 8:06pm
|
I don't see any of the "D" discs listed. Did they just decide not to include those HitDiscs? ------------- <Dave> Someone please tell I-Heart Radio that St. Louis is not known as The Loo! |
Posted By: Scanner
Date Posted: 08 February 2021 at 9:28am
|
Can someone please define what format(s) are included on
each disc by the disc number's suffix? For example, if the disc number ends in "A," which format(s) does it include? Thanks! |
Posted By: AdvprosD
Date Posted: 08 February 2021 at 7:57pm
|
Including discs A, B, C, D, and E there are a few varieties Including an "I" disc that was an International release I believe.
Looking at the old format, Pre-1996 there was only the "A" and "B" discs. I'm not sure when the "E" and "I" discs started pressing. "A" covered CHR, AC and Country releases. "B" covered the AOR and Urban releases and also some of the Smooth Jazz as it developed. The oldest Hitdiscs I know of are in the 600 number category. Every week, the sequential next disc would arrive except during the year end holidays, and resume in the first week in January. Later generation "B" discs added, "New Rock" as a genre though I'm not sure when. At some point they finally had a rollover of the numbers due to the three digit numbering system. So, there actually was a "000" pair of discs made. Also, beginning around set "172", they re-arranged the content to include 2 extra discs in the weekly rotation. "C" and "D" discs were added as genres made subtle changes. "A" still applied CHR and AC While Urban was moved to the "A" disc. "B" Now covered the AAA, Alternative and Modern Rock genres. "C" was NAC, Urban AC, and Country. Though I believe The smooth Jazz floated in among the Urban AC frequently. "D" was singularly formatted as a "Dance" category which pulled in a lot of the charting club tunes along with a number of other white label sources. "E" was not, AFAIK marketed to Europe, but instead carried a number of the current charting hits in Europe. "EHI" and "IHR" charts. I think only the "I" discs were for markets outside the US. GoldDisc was its own omnibus with the genres. Just about anything from any genre ended up on a GoldDisc. I'm sure there are a number of "Not quite so" instances with my reply, but in general this was how it looked at the time they were printed. ------------- <Dave> Someone please tell I-Heart Radio that St. Louis is not known as The Loo! |
Posted By: Scanner
Date Posted: 10 February 2021 at 2:30pm
| Thanks for such a comprehensive reply! |
Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 11 February 2021 at 7:34am
I wouldn't go quite so far as to say that, but they did sometimes put an unusual song or two to fill out a disc. They did have libraries for different formats, and there was some overlap between them (for example oldies and classic rock might share some discs). Lots of duplication of songs on discs, even within a library. |
Posted By: AdvprosD
Date Posted: 11 February 2021 at 9:55am
I was attempting to describe GoldDisc in as few words as possible. You are correct about the discs being more of less formatted to a particular set of similar songs. GoldDiscs also started out in a three digit numerical order and quickly grew larger. (Actually, there are a number of two digit discs as well.) I gave up trying to figure out how they decided to group the music when I discovered the four digit sets. There was a bit of uniformity in the ones starting at 1000, through 3000 as they were mostly from the "Country" genre. I never realized I knew so much about country music until I saw all the classic hits listed within. I have collected quite a number of GoldDiscs over the years through auctions and such. When I discovered that TM Century, or Jones TM was doing their own edits on songs along with putting nearly all the tracks through an aggressive noise reduction software treatment, I began to slow down on my collection. Seems the more I learned about these processes, the less I liked the product. Advice from members here has been quite enlightening! ------------- <Dave> Someone please tell I-Heart Radio that St. Louis is not known as The Loo! |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 18 March 2021 at 7:23am
|
I got to pick apart the TM Century library in detail as I upgraded some '90s-era track for myself.
For tracks released from 1993 to 1998 (I didn't look at anything newer than that), the TM Century tracks are outstanding. They seem to be digital clones of the promo CD singles, usually with a level change (to decrease the levels so that they roughly match '80s-era releases), occasionally an EQ adjustment, and no noise reduction whatsoever. The tracks are labeled in a manner that's consistent with the promo CD singles ("Edit", "LP version", "Supa Dope Fly 7 Inch Remix Edit", etc.) I was very impressed. For tracks released around 1992, I saw some tracks that were labeled sloppily ("Edit" when it should have been "Single Version", etc.) The sound quality is still great. For tracks released around 1991, virtually none of the tracks were labeled with the correct designation. It took a significant effort (thanks to Discogs) to match run times with the printed times on promo CD singles to figure out what versions were in the TM Century library. The sound quality is still good, at least on tracks that I spot-checked against the promo CD singles. For tracks released around 1990, in addition to lacking the proper labeling, it seems that TM Century used an analog step in their mastering. (Play the CD, send through an analog mixing board to tweak EQ, re-digitize.) The analog process adds a little hum to the background, which you can hear at the end of the fades. Very disappointing. I didn't dig into anything released before 1990. I can generalize about some other series from that time frame: Hitmakers seemed to use digital clones of the promo CD singles. On most others, the full dynamic range was intact, but on some tracks, I saw clipping at values less than 100%, like around 70% or 80%. On a handful of tracks, they shortened the tail of the fade. They didn't attempt to properly label the tracks according to the promo CD single (no "Edit", "Single Version", etc.) TuneUp (Network40, Album TuneUp, etc.) also seemed to use digital clones of the promo CD singles. I didn't see any instances of clipping. On a handful of tracks, they shortened the tail of the fade. No designations in their labeling (no "Edit", etc.) Hot Hits was a jukebox/mobile DJ service. I think their masterings were digital clones of the promo CD singles, possibly with level changes, but no EQ adjustments, no compression/limiting/clipping, no NR, and no truncation of the fades. For the 1991-1993ish time frame, Hot Hits seemed to use track 1 of the promo CD singles, but this wasn't a hard and fast rule. No designations in their labeling (no "Edit", etc.) On the whole, I used the Hot Hits version over others whenever I didn't have the promo CD single. Spotlight On Hits was a lesser-known jukebox service. They, too, used digital clones of the promo CD singles, possibly with level changes, but no EQ adjustments, no compression/limiting/clipping, no NR, and no truncation of the fades. For the 1991-1993ish time frame, Spotlight On Hits seemed to use the album version, but this wasn't a hard and fast rule. No designations in their labeling. I often used the Spotlight versions when I didn't have the album version from a record-company release (either the album version on a promo CD single, or the album version on the actual full-length CD from the artist). There were other services as well (Promo Only probably being the best-known), but I don't have many of those. The good news is that on the whole, tracks from these series sound just as good as the promo CD singles, and should be far easier to obtain than the promo CD singles. (Those promo CD singles are crazy expensive nowadays!) I'll be happy to answer specific questions if you have any, but I wanted to summarize in this post some generalities before they slide out of my short-term memory. ------------- There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one http://www.crapfromthepast.com" rel="nofollow - Crap From The Past . |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 19 March 2021 at 3:21am
|
That's great to know.
<I got to pick apart the TM Century library in detail> Are you referring to HitDiscs A (and B, C, etc.?) |
Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 19 March 2021 at 5:13am
|
As always, your review of the various music services
was interesting and appreciated. In the 90s there were several other series of (generally monthly) "hit discs", some of which were only around for a relatively short time. Not sure how those outfits made any money...we never had to pay for any of them. All were a good source, especially in smaller markets that may not have gotten as good label service as the larger ones. There were some that contained unique versions, one that immediately comes to mind was Gina G's "Ooh Ah Just A Little Bit" that ran 3:00 with a cold ending. You didn't mention Top Hits USA in your review, though you've mentioned them in the past. What's your take on them?
In the mid-late 00s/early teens one of the PDs I worked with also had a mobile DJ service and subscribed to them. He let me rip some stuff from them, and I found they'd often upcut at the beginning of a song. There were also what were apparently house edits of some songs. |
Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 19 March 2021 at 5:16am
|
While we're on the subject of TM Studios tracks, is
there a master list of their tracks from their download service? They seem to use the same numbering scheme as a country library I have from Jones Radio Network (which I think was bought by TM). Unfortunately, the crib sheet is missing, and I don't really know country music well enough to ID the songs. |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 19 March 2021 at 7:42am
|
That's funny; I forgot to mention the weekly subscription service that I've been using since 1996 (only 25 years!)
Top Hits USA puts out weekly discs, and "recurrent" discs every two months. They started in 1992 and run to this day. I've found that the six recurrent discs do a stellar job of rounding up radio's biggest 100 (approximately) hits of the year. I've used their recurrent discs consistently in my personal library since about 1999, and will continue to do so as long as they offer the service. They've had superb track selection, comparable to TM Century, and I'd argue that they've even been better at it than TM Century because of the recurrent discs. (If I had to jump into the biggest hits of 2005, for example, I can use the recurrent discs as a guide, knowing that anyone who listened to radio back then would immediately know everything on the recurrent discs.) Their sound quality has improved over the years. Initially, they used an analog system to dink with the volume levels and give an artificial boost to the first few seconds. This mimics what we might do on the air, with the intent of being usable in an automated system. I do understand why it's there, but it's awful. I think they ditched the volume boost by the mid-'90s. They also shortened the fade on a lot of tracks. I think they switched to a digital mastering system around 1999, which vastly improved the sound quality. One caveat which persists to this day: the last few seconds of the song include a high-frequency cue tone in one channel, which can be used in an automation system to trigger the next song. It's higher than human hearing, and well above the 15 kHz cutoff that FM broadcast uses. But it's annoying, and it's on every one of their tracks. I use Top Hits USA for '90s-era songs only as a last resort. For 2000 and everything after, I just don't care as about the music as much (I host a radio show that plays older music.) For me, I use the Top Hits USA discs exclusively for 2000 and everything after, because I know the versions will be the hit versions, and I just don't care so much about the cue tone at the end. To answer Gordon's question: I got a copy of the full TM Century library, presumably what they stored internally on their hard drives. I'm not sure how it relates to what they sent out on the HitDisc/GoldDisc CDs. I don't know if it's complete; there are quite a few HitDisc tracks that aren't in the library that I have. All the tracks in my copy of the library have filenames that start with a unique eight-digit number. (The first one is 00000002 Yes - Owner Of A Lonely Heart.wav, because I know you're wondering.) The numbers seem to correspond to when the song was added to the library. The numbers around 00005000 seem to correspond to the 1990 time frame, for what it's worth. I was unimpressed with tracks having ID numbers smaller than roughly the 00005000 number (not a hard and fast cutoff; just a trend.) ------------- There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one http://www.crapfromthepast.com" rel="nofollow - Crap From The Past . |
Posted By: eric_a
Date Posted: 19 March 2021 at 1:15pm
Starting in the mid-00s, iirc, they started labeling certain tracks as exclusive PO Clean Edits, masking questionable lyrics. For what it's worth, I'm not aware of any non-lyrical edits but it's definitely possible. |
Posted By: AdvprosD
Date Posted: 19 March 2021 at 2:56pm
I'm pretty sure they started doing this a long time earlier than the mid 2000's I can remember HitDiscs labeled this way in the 80s and also noted that as a selling point on the GD3 demo disc, Circa 1990. They had this disc set up to show how splendidly they managed to mask the words bull-sh*t from a Pink Floyd "Money" single. Unless I misunderstood the statement above, They have been "Selling" that for a long time. Also calling their cuts "Radio" versions, rather than "45" versions. The most notable in that respect was the Miami Sound Machine hit "Bad Boy." Where the intro from the album version sounded nothing at all like what the radio played. ------------- <Dave> Someone please tell I-Heart Radio that St. Louis is not known as The Loo! |
Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 20 March 2021 at 2:42pm
One that jumped out at me was "Hello" - Martin Solveig. Our station played the full version, but the PO edit was different than what I heard on the radio elsewhere. |
Posted By: eric_a
Date Posted: 20 March 2021 at 2:45pm
I thought Hykker was referring specifically to the Promo Only service - which is what I meant to reference - but I may have misunderstood. Agree that TM and others’ house edits definitely predate the ‘00s. |
Posted By: eriejwg
Date Posted: 20 March 2021 at 11:37pm
|
When I was a subscriber to TM's PrimeCuts from 2005-2018,
they had custom edits they called Xtra Clean for R&B/Hip Hop tracks that had radio edits but TM cleaned up even more. ------------- John Gallagher Erie, PA https://www.johngallagher.com" rel="nofollow - John Gallagher Wedding & Special Event Entertainment / Snapblast Photo Booth |
Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 21 March 2021 at 6:00am
The JRN Chartbreakers discs also had custom "extra clean" versions, and not strictly rap songs...there was one for Zac Brown Band's "Toes". The regular radio edit ducks the word "ass" but leaves in the line "roll a big fat one", the JRN version substitutes "toes" for "ass", and the other line is ducked or edited. |
Posted By: AdvprosD
Date Posted: 30 March 2021 at 2:41pm
|
I was looking over some shelves for mis-sorted discs and found an "L" disc in the collection. I had forgotten about it entirely. So, the "L" series was a Latin,
Rock, Dance and Pop issue of HitDisc. This one was from 08-11-2000 and was numbered 369L. I'm not sure when those began production or when they stopped. Artists and titles are in Spanish, naturally. I also noted with GoldDisc, there was a notation in the database that wasn't printed on any of the discs, as far as I know. The notation referred to "N" for No-Noise. If I am remembering correctly, these were the discs that got the Q-Sound treatment for noise reduction. Some GoldDiscs didn't get the No Noise treatment, and didn't have the "N" classification. ------------- <Dave> Someone please tell I-Heart Radio that St. Louis is not known as The Loo! |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 30 March 2021 at 3:26pm
|
I don’t know the exact production dates on the Latin discs, but
eventually they became the PrimeCuts series, correct? PrimeCuts Latin was still being serviced all the way until they closed up shop. In the TM database, the disc numbers with the R at the end vs discs with the N were to distinguish between the old discs with the red font on the label and the newer ones with the black font that have the No Noise logo. No Noise was a noise reduction system by Sonic Solutions. (Q- Sound is something entirely different and was not used on GoldDiscs.) ------------- Aaron Kannowski http://www.uptownsound.com" rel="nofollow - Uptown Sound http://www.919thepeak.com" rel="nofollow - 91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop |
Posted By: AdvprosD
Date Posted: 31 March 2021 at 7:11am
|
Thanks Aaron. I must be thinking of one of the other services. Possibly Top Hits USA that used Q-Sound. ------------- <Dave> Someone please tell I-Heart Radio that St. Louis is not known as The Loo! |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 31 March 2021 at 7:16am
|
Q-Sound is a mixing process that's supposed to give the song a "3-D" sound. Madonna used it on the Immaculate Collection, and there were a few other releases around the same time that experimented with it. I've never known Q-Sound to have anything to do with noise reduction, but please correct me if I'm wrong. ------------- Aaron Kannowski http://www.uptownsound.com" rel="nofollow - Uptown Sound http://www.919thepeak.com" rel="nofollow - 91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 31 March 2021 at 7:18am
|
Oh, also, to clarify, the old "red font" GoldDiscs most definitely had noise reduction applied. It wasn't No Noise, and I don't know for sure what system it was. It definitely was a cruder sounding NR than No Noise. Perhaps it was also a Sonic Solutions process that preceded No Noise. ------------- Aaron Kannowski http://www.uptownsound.com" rel="nofollow - Uptown Sound http://www.919thepeak.com" rel="nofollow - 91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 31 March 2021 at 7:44am
|
Aaron is completely correct regarding Q-Sound and the Century 21 GoldDiscs (at least I think they were known as Century 21 before TM Century?)
Q-Sound was a mixing technique that didn't just pan sounds left/right, but imparted a small phase shift between left and right channels. The phase shift was intended to mimic the times at which sounds would arrive at your ears, so that the delays could (in principle) make sounds appear to come from anywhere in the soundstage. Madonna's "The Immaculate Collection" was by far the biggest-selling release in Q-Sound. I think Sting's "The Soul Cages" was also in Q-Sound; there are others from that time frame. It didn't last very long. It was a neat idea back then. Modern sound designers for videogames and VR systems use phase delay and EQ techniques that vastly expand on the ideas first introduced by Q-Sound. As I understood it, Q-Sound really screwed up some of the compressor/limiter processing for FM broadcast. I don't remember the specifics, though. ------------- There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one http://www.crapfromthepast.com" rel="nofollow - Crap From The Past . |
Posted By: eriejwg
Date Posted: 31 March 2021 at 8:36am
My copy of Toes from PrimeCuts is labeled the 'Rick Conner Toes In The Sand Edit.' Not sure if that is a TM edit or official edit. As I said, their edits were labeled Xtra Clean. Promo Only, who I subscribe to now, has what they call PO Clean Edits. The PO standing for Promo Only, of course. ------------- John Gallagher Erie, PA https://www.johngallagher.com" rel="nofollow - John Gallagher Wedding & Special Event Entertainment / Snapblast Photo Booth |
Posted By: AdvprosD
Date Posted: 31 March 2021 at 9:04am
|
I went and looked at one of my Top Hits USA discs and noted that I was misreading the whole thing.
The disc I found was T376 April 18, 1997 and it is labeled "Ultrasonic - Q tm" Radio Disc. That must be where I was getting the idea of Q-Sound. Somehow, I started thinking this was a process used in TM Century's discs. I have absolutely no idea what Ultrasonic - Q is or means. ------------- <Dave> Someone please tell I-Heart Radio that St. Louis is not known as The Loo! |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 31 March 2021 at 9:33am
|
A-ha! I can answer this.
All of Top Hits USA's tracks have a cue tone at 20 kHz in one of the channels at the very end of the song. The cue tone can trigger the next song in an automated system. It's above human hearing, and well above the frequency cutoff for FM broadcasting. It's an ultrasonic (i.e. above human hearing) cue (Q) tone, which is likely protected by a trademarked (TM) brand name ("Ultrasonic - Q", perhaps). ------------- There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one http://www.crapfromthepast.com" rel="nofollow - Crap From The Past . |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 01 April 2021 at 2:58am
|
I was not a fan of the whole "Q-Sound" thing. The local oldies station plays the "Q" version of "Material Girl" by
Madonna and it never sounds right to me. |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 01 April 2021 at 8:31am
|
Paul - I think "Material Girl" sounds off because it's a different mix than the hit mix. All the hits on The Immaculate Collection were remixed from scratch. The new mixes do sound crisp and lively, but they aren't the hit mixes. Unfortunately, those are the versions that live on in much of the radio world. ------------- There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one http://www.crapfromthepast.com" rel="nofollow - Crap From The Past . |
Posted By: AdvprosD
Date Posted: 01 April 2021 at 9:09am
|
I'll admit I helped contribute to this thread running O/T. I ask forgiveness.
I noted in another thread that asked how do we listen to our collections, this comes to mind. Like so many others have posted about Madonna and "The Immaculate Collection", I picked up early-on that the mixes sounded quite different than original "Hit" versions. I actually don't mind either being played as they are pretty easy to distinguish from each other. I didn't know anything about the Q-Sound approach until now though. With that said, I can't think of many times when I actually decided to actively intend to listen to any of Madonna's catalog. Her style in the 80s was good enough to gain her the stardom she earned. As my wife puts it, "She's a good businesswoman." I would also say the same for another superstar of pop, Michael Jackson. I think there's a big difference in how these two were marketed though. It seemed like every time I turned around, there was another new remix on Madonna, or another MJ greatest hits. Ugh! Eventually, there may be a way to look up and easily play a lot of the remixes that mattered most. Sort of like youtube does. I have to admit that I do like this approach, rather than buying endless CDs, hoping for the "Right" mix. ------------- <Dave> Someone please tell I-Heart Radio that St. Louis is not known as The Loo! |